Rhodes v. Guiberson Oil Tools

• Decision Date: 31 January 1996
• Docket Number: No. 92-3770,92-3770
• Citation: 75 F.3d 989
• Parties: 69 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1720, 67 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 43,878, 64 USLW 2486 Calvin RHODES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GUIBERSON OIL TOOLS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 989

75 F.3d 989

69 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1720,

67 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 43,878, 64 USLW 2486

Calvin RHODES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GUIBERSON OIL TOOLS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 92-3770.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Jan. 31, 1996.

Joseph L. Waitz, Jr., Waitz & Downer, Houma, LA, for plaintiff-appellee.

Thomas Joseph Lutkewitte, Joseph Paul Demarest, Favret, Demarest, Russo & Lutkewitte, New Orleans, LA, Felix J. Springer, Day, Berry & Howard, Hartford, CT, for defendant-appellant.

Douglas S. McDowell, McGuiness & Williams, Washington, DC, for Equal Employment Advisory Council, amicus curiae.

Jeffrey C. Londa, Hutcheson & Grundy, Houston, TX, for Texas Association of Business & Chambers of Commerce, amicus curiae.

Sidney Samuel Rosdeitcher, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, New York City, Richard T. Seymour, Teresa Anne Ferrante, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Washington, DC, for Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, amicus curiae.

Dori Kay Bernstein, EEOC, Washington, DC, for Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, amicus curiae.

Janette B. Johnson, National Employment Lawyers Association, Dallas, TX, for National Employment Lawyers Association, amicus curiae.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Before POLITZ, Chief Judge, and KING, GARWOOD, JOLLY, HIGGINBOTHAM, DAVIS, JONES, SMITH, DUHE, WIENER, BARKSDALE, EMILIO M. GARZA, DeMOSS, BENAVIDES, STEWART, PARKER and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.

W. EUGENE DAVIS and DUHE, Circuit Judges:

In this action under the ADEA for discriminatory discharge, we consider en banc the employer's appeal from the district court's denial of its motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV). We agree with the district court that the evidence is sufficient to support the verdict and affirm. ¹

I.

Calvin Rhodes began his employment with Dresser Industries in 1955 as a salesman of products and services to the oil-industry. In Rhodes sued Guiberson Oil for violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634 (1988) ("ADEA"). A jury found that Guiberson Oil terminated Rhodes from his employment because of his age, but also found that Guiberson Oil had not willfully violated the ADEA. ² On remand, the magistrate judge found that Rhodes had sustained damages in the amount of $188,866.70 as a result of Guiberson Oil's unlawful conduct.

                1986, the oil industry was in the throes of a severe economic downturn.   In March of that year, in lieu of being laid off from his job at the Atlas Wireline Division of Dresser, Rhodes was offered a job selling oil field equipment at Compac, another Dresser company which subsequently became Guiberson Oil.   Seven months later, on October 31, 1986, Guiberson Oil discharged Rhodes.   At the time of his termination, Rhodes was fifty-six years old.   In the severance report, Guiberson Oil stated that it had discharged Rhodes because of a reduction in work force and that it would consider rehiring him.   Within two months, however, Guiberson Oil hired a forty-two-year-old salesman to do the same job
                

Guiberson Oil prosecuted this appeal to challenge the judgment on grounds that it was not supported by sufficient evidence and the damages were excessive. A divided panel of this court agreed with Guiberson's sufficiency argument and reversed and rendered judgment for Guiberson. We took the case en banc to consider the sufficiency question in light of the Supreme Court's recent decision in St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 113 S.Ct. 2742, 125 L.Ed.2d 407 (1993).

II.

Guiberson Oil contends that the evidence is insufficient to support the jury's finding of age discrimination and argues that the district court erred in not granting its motions for a directed verdict or judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) makes it "unlawful for an employer ... to discharge any individual ... because of such individual's age." 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1) (1988). To establish a prima facie case of age discrimination, the plaintiff "must demonstrate that: (1) he was discharged; (2) he was qualified for the position; (3) he was within the protected class at the time of the discharge; and (4) he was either i) replaced by someone outside the protected class, ii) replaced by someone younger, or iii) otherwise discharged because of his age." Bodenheimer v. PPG Indus., Inc., 5 F.3d 955, 957 (5th Cir.1993).

Under the Supreme Court's McDonnell Douglas- Burdine framework, the plaintiff first must establish a prima facie case by a preponderance of the evidence; once established, the prima facie case raises an inference of unlawful discrimination. ³ See Hicks at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2747; Texas Dep't of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 252-53, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1093, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981); McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). The burden of production then shifts to the defendant to proffer a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for According to Hicks, such evidence of pretext will permit a trier of fact to infer that the discrimination was intentional:

                the challenged employment action.  Hicks, 509 U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2747;  Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253, 101 S.Ct. at 1093;  McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802, 93 S.Ct. at 1824.   The defendant may meet this burden by presenting evidence that, "if believed by the trier of fact, would support a finding that unlawful discrimination was not the cause of the employment action."  Hicks, 509 U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2747.   If the defendant meets its burden, the presumption raised by the plaintiff's prima facie case disappears.  Burdine, 450 U.S. at 255 & n. 10, 101 S.Ct. at 1094 & n. 10.   However, the plaintiff is accorded the opportunity to demonstrate that the defendant's articulated rationale was merely a pretext for discrimination.   See Hicks, 509 U.S. at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2747-48;  Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253, 101 S.Ct. at 1093;  McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 804-05, 93 S.Ct. at 1825
                

The factfinder's disbelief of the reasons put forward by the defendant (particularly if disbelief is accompanied by a suspicion of mendacity) may, together with the elements of the prima facie case, suffice to show intentional discrimination. Thus, rejection of the defendant's proffered reasons, will permit the trier of fact to infer the ultimate fact of intentional discrimination, and the Court of Appeals was correct when it noted that, upon such rejection, "[n]o additional proof of discrimination is required...."

509 U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2749 (footnote and citation omitted) (quoting lower court). It is unclear, however, whether the Court intended that in all such cases in which an inference of discrimination is permitted a verdict of discrimination is necessarily supported by sufficient evidence.

We believe that the question does not yield a categorical answer. Rather, we are convinced that ordinarily such verdicts would be supported by sufficient evidence, but not always. The answer lies in our traditional sufficiency-of-the-evidence analysis. See Deborah C. Malamud, The Last Minuet: Disparate Treatment After Hicks, 93 Mich.L.Rev. 2229, 2305 (1995) (noting that "the Court stressed in Hicks that once a McDonnell Douglas- Burdine case reaches the pretext stage, it is to be treated like any other civil case."). We test jury verdicts and motions for summary judgment for sufficiency of the evidence under the Boeing Co. v. Shipman, 411 F.2d 365 (5th Cir.1969) (en banc), standard. ⁴ Under Boeing, "[t]here must be a conflict in substantial evidence to create a jury question." Id. at 375. Substantial evidence is defined as "evidence of such quality and weight that reasonable and fair-minded men in the exercise of impartial judgment might reach different conclusions." Id. at 374. Consequently, "[a] mere scintilla of evidence is insufficient to present a question for the jury." Id. Even if the evidence is more than a scintilla, "Boeing assumes that some evidence may exist to support a position which is yet so overwhelmed by contrary proof as to yield to a directed verdict." Neely v. Delta Brick and Tile Co., Inc., 817 F.2d 1224, 1226 (5th Cir.1987).

Our Boeing analysis applies to circumstantial as well as direct evidence. Because direct evidence is rare in discrimination cases, a plaintiff must ordinarily use circumstantial evidence to satisfy her burden of persuasion. See Davis v. Chevron U.S.A., Inc., 14 F.3d 1082, 1085 (5th Cir.1994). Thus, this circuit has held repeatedly that a plaintiff need not provide direct evidence to sustain a jury finding of discrimination. See, e.g., Burns v. Texas City Refining, Inc., 890 F.2d 747, 751 (5th Cir.1989). Similarly, Hicks does not cast aside circumstantial evidence as a means of allowing a factfinder to infer discrimination.

In an ADEA case, as in any lawsuit, a court must examine both circumstantial and direct evidence in deciding the sufficiency of the evidence to support a jury determination that the employer used age as To sustain a finding of discrimination, circumstantial evidence must be such as to allow a rational factfinder to make a reasonable inference that age was a determinative reason for the employment decision. The factfinder may rely on all the evidence in the record to draw this inference of discrimination. In tandem with a prima facie case, the evidence allowing rejection of the employer's proffered reasons will often, perhaps usually, permit a finding of discrimination without additional evidence. Thus, a jury issue will be presented and a plaintiff can avoid summary judgment and judgment as a matter of law if the evidence taken as a whole (1) creates a fact issue as to whether each of the employer's stated reasons was what actually motivated the employer and (2) creates a reasonable inference that age was a determinative...